This blog provides delicious,traditional, vegetarian, South Indian Recipes from my mother Chitra Amma's kitchen. There are few 'world recipes' as well!
Thanks to Shravan, Pranav, Akash, Tara, Guggs, Shankari, Adu, Dhrithi, and Appa Ramachandran for the photos!

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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Those were the days when I never managed to get a hole in my vadai!! Since my family loved Thair Vadais, I prepared them quite often, but with the distinctive holes missing! However, it was compensated by the coarse chilly, coconut and ginger paste, green coriander dressing, and the spicy seasoning in a thick curd base.

As my babies grew up and were ready to taste Thair Vadais, I started making them with minimum spice and a smooth curd base. This became a hit with the rest of the family members as well, since then my thair vadais on popular demand remain the same - without holes, and without the heavy masala paste. These blobs in smooth curd, can easily be mistaken for some nice desert or sweet! I still remember the surprised look on the face of my daughters’ music teacher when he had the first bite of my Thair Vadai, expecting it be a sweet. But he did enjoy it after all and even requested for a second piece.

INGREDIENTS:

Black gram dal – 1 cup

Fresh ginger – 1” piece

Salt - 1tsp

Thick curd – 3 cups

Chilly powder – 1 pinch

Cumin powder – 1 pinch

Coriander seed powder – 1 pinch

Mustard seeds – ¼ tsp

Cumin seeds – ¼ tsp

Carrot - 1 (grated)

Sugar – ¼ tsp

Fresh coriander – a few

Oil - for frying

METHOD:

1. Soak the dal for half an hour.

2. Grind into a smooth batter adding little water at a time, along with ginger and 1/2tsp of salt, and leave it aside. The batter can be of idli batter consistency (this is more thin than what is traditionally made for vadais, but gives spongy vadais).

3. Add 1/2 tsp of salt and sugar to the thick curd and beat well to a smooth paste, without any lumps.

4. Take 2 tbsps of this curd and dilute it with 2 glasses of water, and keep the rest aside.

5. Heat oil and drop one spoon of batter into it and fry into a golden brown vadai.

Six to eight vadais can be fried at a time.

6. Drain the first batch of vadais, and immediately immerse them in the watery curd, prepared in step 4.

7. Now start frying the next batch.

8. Remove the first batch of vadais, which have now bloated, by absorbing the diluted curd, and arrange them in a shallow dish. This creates space for immersing the second batch of vadais.

9. Arrange all the fried and soaked vadais in the shallow dish.

10. Mix in the carrot gratings and chopped coriander into the thick curd that was set aside.

11. Sprinkle the chilly powder, cumin powder and coriander powder on top of the curd. Don't mix yet.

12. Heat 2 tsps of oil and add mustard seeds and cumin seeds.

13. When the seasoning splutters, pour it all over the spice powders on the curd cooking them. You can now mix well.

Dear Chitra!Greetings from Robert-Gilles In Shizuoka, Japan!Thank you so much for visiting my blog and wrting a kind comment!Although I am not a vegetarian, I make a point to investigate whatever could come as seful for friends with specila requirements.I will coninue to look around and I'm pretty sure i will findsomething!There is a vegetarian page on my blog. Please check it!Cheers,Robert-Gilles

1) Quality of urad dal - Some dals take longer to soak than others. So instead of just half hour - try soaking for 2 -3 hours. You will know, because the dal swells up,and you can crush/break it between your nails.

2)Consistency of batter - Slightly thinner consistency gives soft vadas, but you may not be able to make a hole in the center!

3)Once you fry hot vadas, try soaking in hot water (with little salt)instead of buttermilk. Besides making the vada soft, it also removes excess oil.

These are the 3 things I can think of! Do try and let me know if you are successful next time! All the best!

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Welcome to Chitra Amma's Kitchen.

I am Dibs. I am a born Foodie. I love to cook; love to eat; love to feed folks who appreciate good food. Blogging provides me a great way of documenting my mother, Chitra’s recipes, as a ready reference irrespective which time zone I live in. Amma honestly makes the best food I've ever had, and somehow, the anecdotes she tells us, make the dishes taste all the better.Most posts here are written by my mother Chitra. It’s her recipes, along with related reminiscences of people, places and anecdotes. She writes, I post!What started for a lark, has now become a serious hobby, drawing in participation from the whole family. My father, S.R. Ramachandran has started clicking away every dish made at home! Aunts, cousins, siblings, contribute to photos, and ask for recipes.We try to illustrate implements such as utensils, grinding stones and so on from the ‘pre-electric-mixer’ days wherever possible. We hope this will make an interesting read for future generations, on how food was cooked in earlier times!The site is still in its infancy, and slowly evolving, as our skills improve! We invite your comments, ideas, and questions, and will attempt answering them.

Thank you for your visit, and we hope you enjoy your stay at Chitra Amma’s Kitchen.